“None of us go your way, I think,” said he, as lightly as if there were no grievance in the case; “however, it’s not far.  Good-night, my boy!”

And so with a volley of good-nights, the cheerful voices passed on up the village.  Bill stood till they had quite died away, and then when all was silent, he turned into the lane.

The cold night-wind crept into his ears, and made uncomfortable noises among the trees, and blew clouds over the face of the moon.  He almost wished that there were no moon.  The shifting shadows under his feet, and the sudden patches of light on unexpected objects, startled him, and he thought he should have felt less frightened if it had been quite dark.  Once he ran for a bit, then he resolved to be brave, then to be reasonable; he repeated scraps of lessons, hymns, and last Sunday’s Collect, to divert and compose his mind; and as this plan seemed to answer, he determined to go through the Catechism, both question and answer, which he hoped might carry him to the end of his unpleasant journey.  He had just asked himself a question with considerable dignity, and was about to reply, when a sudden gleam of moonlight lit up a round object in the ditch.  Bill’s heart seemed to grow cold, and he thought his senses would have forsaken him.  Could this be the head of ——?  No! on nearer inspection it proved to be only a turnip; and when one came to think of it, that would have been rather a conspicuous place for the murdered man’s skull to have been lost in for so many years.

My hero must not be ridiculed too much for his fears.  The terrors that visit childhood are not the less real and overpowering from being unreasonable; and to excite them is wanton cruelty.  Moreover, he was but a little lad, and had been up and down Yew-lane both in daylight and dark without any fears, till Bully Tom’s tormenting suggestions had alarmed him.  Even now, as he reached the avenue of yews from which the lane took its name, and passed into their gloomy shade, he tried to be brave.  He tried to think of the good GOD Who takes care of His children, and to Whom the darkness and the light are both alike.  He thought of all he had been taught about angels, and wondered if one were near him now, and wished that he could see him, as Abraham and other good people had seen angels.  In short, the poor lad did his best to apply what he had been taught to the present emergency, and very likely had he not done so he would have been worse; but as it was, he was not a little frightened, as we shall see.

Yew-lane—­cool and dark when the hottest sunshine lay beyond it—­a loitering place for lovers—­the dearly-loved play-place of generations of children on sultry summer days—­looked very grim and vault-like, with narrow streaks of moonlight peeping in at rare intervals to make the darkness to be felt!  Moreover, it was really damp and cold, which is not favourable to courage.  At a certain point Yew-lane skirted a corner of the churchyard,